The number of young adults in the United States with high blood pressure may be much higher than previously reported, according to a new study by researchers at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill.
Researchers analyzed data on more than 14,000 men and women between 24 and 32 years old in 2008 from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, known as Add Health. They found 19 percent had elevated blood pressure, also referred to as hypertension. Only about half of the participants with elevated blood pressure had ever been told by a health-care provider that they had the condition.
"The findings are significant because they indicate that many young adults are at risk of developing heart disease, but are unaware that they have hypertension," said Quynh Nguyen, a doctoral student at UNC's Gillings School of Global Public Health and the study's lead author. Hypertension is a strong risk factor for stroke and coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death for adults in the United States.
The findings were published this week in the journal Epidemiology.
Kathleen Mullan Harris, Add Health's principal investigator and a co-author of the paper, said the findings were noteworthy because they were from the first nationally representative, field- based study of blood pressure to focus on young adults.
"The message is clear," said Harris. "Young adults and the medical professionals they visit shouldn't assume they're not old enough to have high blood pressure. This is a condition that leads to chronic illness, premature death and costly medical treatment."